'Walk for Water' helps UT engineering students send purification units to third world countries

It's called the 'Walk for Water 5K', an annual event at the University of Toledo. This is all about raising awareness and money for clean water use around the world.

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Published:
10:34 PM EDT April 9, 2017

Updated:
12:40 PM EDT August 12, 2018

. - It's called the 'Walk for Water 5K', an annual event at the University of Toledo.

It's all about raising awareness and money for clean water use.

There are women and children in countries like El Salvador, Guatamala, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have to carry jugs for miles every day to find clean water.

They do it to lower their chances of getting intestinal diseases like colorera, diarrhea, dysentery and typhoid fever.

On Sunday, the UT walkers were encouraged to symbolically carry gallon jugs of water representing the daily trek of desperate third world residents.

"It's pretty bad. I was in El Salvador over spring break and we saw a lot of people who don't have access to clean water and spend hundreds of dollars every month to pay for medical expenses they use to deal with illness they're getting from drinking water," said walk organizer Megan Davidson.

Pledge money raised by the walkers goes towards the purchase of water purification units.

The units are built on UT's campus by engineering students and shipped to countries in need with the help of the Otsego, Michigan company 'Clean Water For The World.'

"In many of the countries we go to, people are drinking 2-3 teaspoons of feces every year. Having these purifiers installed at schools and community centers, they're drinking clean water," Janet Ray of 'Clean Water For The World.'

Last year walkers raised $20,000, enough to provide twenty units.

That's 12,000 gallons of clean water per day for about 3,000 people.

"I believe everyone should have drinking water available to them and when they don't I want to be able to help them in some way," said walker Kathryn Patterson.

And every year they help at the University of Toledo one step at a time.